Shadows of the Moon
by blue.totoro
Summary: Translation of "kunn varjot" by Marygold. Years after his last adventure, an older and much-changed Tintin wonders why Chang has never written. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: **I can't take credit for the original story, but I did the translation.A little while ago, I discovered a beautiful story by Marygold titled 'kuun varjot' ('Shadows of the Moon', in Finnish). I liked it so much that I wanted to translate it into English for all of you!

**Soundtrack**: the Heavy Rain piano suite. watch?v=RnWfpFl0B0s

If you notice that it doesn't seem like my usual writing style, that's because I wanted to keep the cadence of the original Finnish as much as possible. And for those of you who were wondering, I have Marygold's permission for the posting of this story. Enjoy!

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**Shadows of the Moon**

You do not know my name.

I had a name once, but over the years it has lost its meaning. My name, like my past, has been worn down like the cliffs on the sea, tormented by endless waves. The jagged scratches and bumps have been worn away, ground out smooth and even. I am like one of those round stones, which the waves leave behind.

People think that these stones are beautiful. They pick them up on the beach, take them home, touch them, admire them. They place them in jars and use them as paperweights. The stones last for thousands of years. Their beauty lasts longer than the people themselves.

Sometimes people ask me if it bothers me that I am called a name completely different than that which my mother called me. And I ask: how can it matter to them? I wonder if they really want to know, or if they ask just out of curiosity— a thing so characteristic to human nature, but so often followed by disappointment.

My real name doesn't mean anything. If you were ever to hear it, you would forget it in the same instant. That's why I leave it without telling.

There are more important things than my name.

/

When night falls, the garden courtyard of Moulinsart becomes a different world. But I have never been afraid, not even when the moon sinks behind the clouds, and the last of the lights disappear behind the trees. The branches of the trees rub against each other and whisper to me. Even though they don't have the words to speak, I think I still understand part of it.

The very trees yearn for many things. They've seen so much, and so much has been lost and changed.

I am older now, much older than the Tintin that the world knows. I walk around the halls of Moulinsart at night, aimless and futureless. I have no hope now.

I miss my dog, Milou.

The years have not wiped away the grief of my dog's passing. And so I have no purpose; the sorrow will not go, it will remain in a deep corner of my heart.

I have not been myself for many years. I feel that a curtain has shrouded me from everything I have ever loved, leaving me unable to see what really matters. I have drowned in my pain. A fog surrounds my consciousness. Sometimes, I'm not even sure who I am.

I miss Chang. He passes me in my dreams every night. He calls out for me to rescue him from the cold mountains of Tibet, but I know there's nothing I can do.

I do not even know if he wants to leave.

I'd always hoped that one day he would leave the country and would come to me - but his adoptive parents are too old, and his heart was too heavy and conscientious. I have never dared to tell him, or even admit it to myself, because I'm afraid it's selfish. Maybe Chang and I are too much alike in some respects. Recently, he has not even written. Sometimes I wonder if my dream was, after all, only a dream. I wonder if he's still there in the frozen snow, dead. Even though I have long since rescued him from Tibet, sometimes it feels that way.

The Professor has become old; he is beginning to lose not only his hearing, but his memory as well. He tries his best to keep his mind from wandering off constantly, but in spite of his efforts, his once-beautiful roses have gone untreated and neglected.

I pass the flowers, dead and withered, their scent a narcotic in the dark. I walk through the park, back towards the house.

And the Captain—

He will probably be just as he has always been: worried, drunk, anxious. I'd given up trying to make him stop a long time ago. Recently, it's all I can do to keep everything together, so I've stopped caring.

Sometimes— especially after the death of my dog— the Captain is said to be worried about me. I know that he has many good reasons to be worried. So many terrible things have happened to me in my life; so many of them at such a young age. In my last adventure, when I got closer to death than ever before, I knew it was time to stop. Although I write more stories, I know my own adventuring has ended.

Before I go back inside, I stop for a moment at Milou's grave, which is dug under a large chestnut tree. The tree is growing close to the Captain's window, now that it has gotten older.

What would you say if I told you how the professor wanders through the Hall in night-dresses, imagining he's on his way to the moon, and how his doctor has begun to keep him more and more inside of Moulinsart's walls? What if I told you how the spring has changed for the summer, how the airplanes flew low overhead yesterday, and I heard street musicians playing in the city? What if I told you how the world somehow seems to move more slowly now, like a carousel which slows down before the final round?

I'm sitting on my knees in the wet ground and hear the night humming around me, and somewhere in the borderlands between sleep and wakefulness, I hear my name called.

_My friend_, _where have you been?_

Chang's here next to me, and he holds out his hand and wraps it around mine. In the other hand he is holding some sort of strange, dim lantern. In its light, he leads me towards a stone and we sit.

_My friend, my heart has missed you so_, he says, and raises the lantern a little higher, glowing fireflies in the dark. _I have not received any replies, so I'm afraid -_

_Letters?_ I repeat. _Chang, I have not received any letters_.

We sit in silence for a long time, his hand on my hand until I ask him where he is right now.

_I walked outdoors, to the garden_, he says. _It was so dark outside, so I collected fireflies in a jar. I'm going to release them later. My mind is restless, because my father is dying. He's ... he's been very sick for a long time._

_I'm ... I'm sorry._

_My mother passed away last year. She was a good woman, like my father. I do not know how I could ever repay them for what they have done for me, when you took me to him. I'm alone again. Alone, without a family ..._

_You have me,_ I say, squeezing his hand so hard that it almost hurts.

_I thought you were dead,_ he says. His eyes are so serious, so sad.

_I am alive,_ I assure him._ I do not know why your letters have not reached their destination._

_Tintin, why are you so sad? Why do you seem so weighed down? I heard you were talking to someone. It sounds as if you have many things on your mind._

_Everything is ... changed so much._

_Has your world changed, Tintin? Or have you changed?_

_I don't know, Chang. At times, my heart beats at a slower pace. At times, everything around me seems to be slower. Sometimes, I can get things to slow down and eventually stop. I've forgotten what the light looks like. I've…_

_Forgotten the sun,_ Chang finishes for me, and gently squeezes my hand.

_I miss you_, I whisper.

_I miss you,_ he whispers back. _Write to me. I need to know that you still live. That you're not just a dream._

He stands up, walks a few steps away, and unscrews the lid of his jar. The fireflies' shimmering glow spreads into the black sky, sprinkling glitter on the world around us. When I open my eyes, I find myself in the garden once again, leaning against the thick trunk of a chestnut tree.

I hear the Captain's heavy steps approaching before he appears on the path, flashlight in hand. He has slippers on his feet, and he's thrown his purple morning coat on to cover his pajamas.

"What are you doing out at this hour, Tintin?" he asks me, his voice anxious. I look at his face and notice how wrinkled it is, how haggard. "You look so… sad and shadowed."

Although the years have passed, I always kid him. I'm always the same, adventurous boy who climbed up to his cabin window so many years ago and rescued him. I say I rescued him from Allan, but I think I saved him from himself.

"I just ... I wanted a bit of fresh air," I laugh, trying not to let him see how I feel. My smile feels fake, and I am certain he can see right through it. But he doesn't.

The Captain takes my hand and leads me back inside. I can see that he has left the doors open, and the golden light streams out into the garden.

"I stopped for a moment at Milou's tomb, and I fell asleep. And in my dream, I saw Chang…"

"Really?"

"He said ... he said that his father is dying. He also wrote me letters, which I have not answered. But, then again, I have not received any letter from him in almost two years ..."

The Captain looks at me over his shoulder, but doesn't say anything. Instead, he closes the door closed behind us – it shuts softly with a click - and leads me in the lobby's marble floor into the living room, where he asks me if I want to drink, or perhaps a cup of tea, before I go back to sleep. I offer to make some tea instead, but he refuses, and tells me to sit down by the fireplace in a nearby armchair.

The warmth of the fire feels good on my cold skin. I watch the fire until it becomes glowing red embers. They remind me of Chang and his fireflies.

When the teapot begins to whistle from the kitchen, the Captain carries to me a cup of tea, sugar, and a teapot. There is something else too, a beautiful silver box. I do not remember seeing it before. On the other hand, I suppose that Moulinsart's cellars are vast, and so full of all kinds of valuables and unnecessary treasures, that I am not surprised I have never seen it. I only wonder why he brought it to me.

The Captain hands me a cup of tea and drops in two lumps of sugar, and then takes a sip from his own cup.

"The nights are so cold this time of year," I say, holding my tea cup to my lips. "It's nice to walk out, when everywhere is quiet. The night hears my thoughts. ... It's like sliding from this world to another."

A silence fills the room, and for a moment all that we can hear is the sound of the crackling fire. Finally, the Captain turns to me, worry etched on his face.

"Son, I have to confess something to you," the Captain says, in a rough voice. "I want you to know that I did it only for your own good. Or so I thought ... Tintin, thundering typhoons, after all, you were so depressed and you missed him all the time, I wasn't sure what to do…"

He picks up the silver box in his hands, and gives it to me across the table. It is very light; when I feel it in my hands, it's like handling paper rather than metal.

"His letters," the Captain explains, clearing his throat and looking away. "Don't say anything. Take it."

My heart stops for a moment— only one moment, but it feels like an eternity.

The Captain leans away from his armchair, to seek the fireplace poker with which he begins to poke the embers in the fireplace. He avoids my gaze. Perhaps I might be angry with him if I wasn't so incredibly tired, so tremendously far away from everything else. Leaving my almost-full tea cup on the table, I wish him good night, and put the box under my arm, trudging slowly up the stairs. Everything seems so hard, so heavy. Even breathing.

When I reach my bedroom, I turn the key in the lock before I sit down on my bed. I put my fingernails under the lid of the silver tin and open it with trembling hands. There are four letters. Each envelope is written in my name - not my real name, but the name that I'm known as- and my Moulinsart address. The oldest postmark is more than one and a half years ago.

_My friend,_ Chang writes,

_you cannot imagine my joy when I received the latest letter today._

_Life here has been hard, because my parents_ _are in poor condition._

_ I do not think either of them will last_ _for much longer. But whenever I hear news of you, I feel happy._

I can barely read it to the end. My chest rises and falls, each movement sharp and painful. My breath catches in my throat.

The next letter is dated the summer after the last one. I rip it from the envelope, my eyes scanning each line:

_Dear friend,_

_I write to you, because I have not received a reply to the letter I sent at the end of last year. _

_I believe that it might have gotten lost on the way - the letters do not always reach all the way around the world._

_To my regret, I have to tell you that my mother passed away last spring. She had been ill for a very long time._

_My heart feels very heavy these days._

_I miss you and I hope you're with me in my dreams._

I continue with the third letter, even though I know it will only bring me more pain. But I can't help myself:

_My friend,_

_In my heart I fear that something bad is_ _happened, because I have not received a response to either of my previous letters._

_In yesterday's dream for a moment I was able to reach out to_ _you, but became scared, experiencing sorrow. _

_It was_ _like a curtain around you, a fog._

_My friend, if you get my letter, I hope that you answer me._

I am barely able to see the last sentences, because my eyes are brimming over with tears. But I cannot stop; I wipe my face with my jacket sleeve, before I force myself to continue the fourth letter, which nearly rips my heart from my chest:

_My dear friend,_ begins his fourth and last letter,

_I feel very great fear for you._

_I feel it every single moment, wherever I go._

_I've been looking for you my dreams, but I cannot find a way to reach you._

_Perhaps you cannot hear me. If that is the case, I'm afraid there is no longer anyone to hear me._

_If you are still out there, you need to know_ _that I will never stop writing._

_Just as you were expecting to find me in Tibet, while others said it was impossible,_ _I do not intend to give up._

_You are always in my heart._

_And my heart is looking for you always._

My heart screams in the middle of such emptiness.

And the worst thing is to know that it is not only the Captain and his letters. Although I cannot help thinking that he hid letters from me only for the well-intentioned reasons that he told me, I still cannot blame only the Captain.

No.

I myself have been scared and empty. Just as he said, _it was like a curtain around you, a fog…_

I, who have not been myself lately. Or, for that matter, for many years.

I, who pushed him away, ran away from him, hid deep in the shadows, which kept him far away, and prevented myself from understanding how he was looking for me and missed me.

I, who would have been able to write to him at any time, to ask— I knew that he still remembered me— but I had never done so, I had never even considered doing so.

But I will do it now.

I get up off the bed and I pull open the drawers of my desk, from which I take out my pen and paper stationery.

I know that my handwriting is trembling, and it is difficult to get the words out clearly:

_My friend,_

_I do not know, can you ever forgive me ..._

I stop, unable to continue. My whole body shakes. I look out of the window, the moonlit park, where the clouds have been torn, letting the silver light of the moon shine through. Moulinsart glistens and gleams in the light of the moon, and I bite my lip. I'm not sure if I can go any further.

I am writing to him for all that the past has happened since my letter. I write about sorrow and longing, my nightly walks in the gardens of Moulinsart— where I go when I cannot sleep, and the only place where I feel happy. I write about how all those times when I've been close to death and tried to ignore it, but are now beginning to come back to my mind more vividly than ever.

Everywhere I look, I'm starting to see it—

Even in the sky, the moon will not leave me alone, but reminds me every day how the road to death is, too, a journey. And that I am caught somewhere between my beginning and my end, angry and tired and scared.

I now realize what I couldn't understand before— the fact that I have never in my life been so sad. And that the gray shadows, which the Captain claimed to have seen my face, have in reality been shadows from my heart.

I would give everything that I have to run away. Not just from the Hall: that's not what I mean. I want to run away from my thoughts, the prison of my mind. I feel as if I am looking at a water color picture that keeps getting darker and darker, until finally it gives way to blackness. I smell the withered roses that the Professor has left behind. I find myself in a place where there is no color, and I look around only to find darkness.

And I write:

_The world is not slowing down, Chang._

_I am. I'm waiting for it all_ _to stop._

_I'm stuck on an endless carousel, waiting for the final turn when I can jump off._

_You are right. I've forgotten the sun._

_I live under a moon covered with shadows._

On the third page of the letter I stop to think about how to end it. How can I stop a letter which I should have written months, years ago? When I close my eyes, I see him standing in the garden, surrounded by the black tree branches waving from side to side, the cold wind whipping his hair, in his hands a glass bowl filled with thousands of glittering fireflies.

I would like so much to ask him to come to me. _Command_ him to come to me. But I write:

_I know now that I should not let the Professor's roses die._

_Instead I should learn to make them live._

_I will feed them and help them grow until they are in the day time, as beautiful as the night._

_I hope that one day I can show them to you._

The next morning, I pick a few withered rose petals and place them in the palm of my hand, before I slip it into the envelope together with Chang's letter. I hope with all my heart that when they reach him, they'll still smell like they should.

And all through the summer, I take care of the Professor's roses.

Autumn comes. The rose petals, like the leaves of the trees, fall to the ground.

And come spring, the snow melts, and the roses bloom again.

/

One day in May, when I sit in the garden, and the sun is shining on my back, someone walks up behind me and put his hand over my shoulder.

"The captain told me that I find you here," he says. "Your roses are just as beautiful as I imagined."

I get up and shake the dirt and rose thorns from my clothes before I look at him. He is taller than in my dreams, and his face narrower, and he looks older. He is wearing straight black pants, a black jacket with a white dress shirt, and he holds a suitcase in one hand. He smiles at me, before taking my letter out of his pocket.

"I'm sorry I have not responded to your letter," he says.

"It's okay, Chang," I reply, before I pull him into my arms, his heart against mine, while I kiss the tears from his face. "_There are so many more important things_."

**The End**

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**Author's Note: **I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed translating it. It's a beautiful story.

As always, a **review** would be incredibly appreciated!


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